Seraphina
by his little girl
Summary: Erik is still distraught over the departure of his idolized Christine. Fate seemingly throws a new person in to his life. Can she even come close to his perfect Christine?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"Higher! I want more elevation. E-le-va-tion," shrieked Madame Giry. "Can you not lift that leg higher?" She waved her cane irritatedly at a tall, gangly ballerina who struggled with an arabesque at the far end of the stage and Francesca frantically tried her best to comply with her dancing teacher's insatiable demands.

Madame Giry's head snapped to the left upon hearing chattering that had long since been increasing in volume and fervor. "Stop talking, Anna and Lina. Don't think I cannot see you. You are so loud Mrs. O'Connor can hear you all the way from outside this auditorium." She brandished her wooden cane at them and they hurriedly quietened.

Mrs. O'Connor was the head-cleaning woman who was wholly deaf in one ear, partially deaf in the other and had a distinct dislike for the noisy ballerinas who often poked fun at her potato-like figure. The ballet mice often mocked her with lousy imitations of her well-known "Ye be getting off my clean, clean floor now!" Her appearance in the auditorium usually was greeted with rude insults hurled by the ballerinas but her deafness made their efforts a waste of time.

One of the prima ballerinas, Giselle, tried to complete a series of steps but fumbled. Giselle was already tired out and her foot was sickled. Giselle's face contorted as she concentrated to balance on one foot.

Madame Giry, who was in an unusually snappy mood, raised her voice.

"I _said _ grand jetè in to effacè position, not en evant!"

Giselle cringed and chassed to face the left corner. All the dancers stopped talking. When Madame Giry got angry at any of the prima ballerinas, she was most likely to lose her already flammable temper at anyone who displeased her. Her cane connected more oft than not with the dancers' limbs when Madame Giry was not happy.

"Again, from the fouettè en tournant."

She followed.

Giselle's ankle gave way under her and she ended up landing on her bottom, her leg twisted at an awkward angle underneath her on the shiny wooden polished floor with an ear splitting scream of pain, that the pianist stopped short with a loud dissonant chord that made Madame Giry wince.

"My feet! My feet, it hurts!" Giselle could do nothing but clutch her ankle, her face a pasty white. The ballerinas rushed to gather around her.

Madame Giry pushed her way through the crowd of anxious dancers with some difficulty and landed on her knees next to Giselle who was close to fainting from the pain.

"Quick, Agnes, run and get some ice from the kitchen. Does this hurt?" she asked, probing a spot above Giselle's ankle. A loud wail arose from the middle of the throng. The other ballerinas followed suit and wailed alongside her.

"You are all babbling, and it is impossible to hear what Giselle is saying to me. Go away, take a break or something," Madame Giry dismissed them hurriedly, and the dancers fled, eager to get a chance to take a little rest, their friend's pain forgotten with the lure of a short reprieve.

"How am I to dance tomorrow night, Mam'zelle?" Giselle's lower lip quivered, and Madame Giry sat back on her haunches.

"You can't, not with your ankle, Giselle," she said, and Giselle's tears burst forth anew. "You may be able to dance in two months, though, when the next opera is out."

Giselle sat erect, her face ashen.

"Two months? What am I going to do in two months?"

Madame Giry fingered her long thick braid, her sharp eyes scanning the stage, already mentally deciding which ballerina would be fit to replace Giselle.

"I'm not sure, Giselle. We'll figure something out," she muttered. She left the downcast prima ballerina with a friend and dropped herself down on a stool placed at the corner of the stage for her convenienve.

Her lead ballerina was gone, and she would have to go through all the trouble to find a substitute. How delightfully unnecessary.

"Justina, will you please take Giselle to her dressing room? I'll send in Agnes with the ice later," said Madame Giry, waving her hand absently.

Meg Giry sat herself down next to her mother, and yanked off her stiff pointé shoes, groaning as she pulled off her toe pads. She looked at her mother.

"Maman?" she asked quietly, pulling at her stockings. Meg pulled at a tendril of hair around her face, tugging it impatiently.

Madame Giry gave a half hearted 'mmph?', not really paying attention.

Maria? Madame Giry asked herself. No. Maria was too flighty headed. She would most likely get all worked up, practice till three in the morning and collapse of stage fright an hour before the performance.

"Maman, what about Seraphina?" Meg Giry pulled at her mother's coarse dancing shift.

Bridgette. Madame Giry surveyed the fair blond dancer flirting with a stage hand at the side of the stage, toying with the heavy drapes with her fingers_. No_, she decided. Bridgette had not been paying much attention to lessons lately, being too consumed with her new interest in Joseph.

Madame Giry wrinkled her nose subconsciously. Joseph needed a hair cut very badly. His beard was overgrown and he smelled like a bag of week old turnips. And he talked too much. What Bridgette saw in him, she'd never guess. Madame Giry quietly glanced upwards, trying to see in to the darkness, barely making out the planks used by stagehands, and the numerous ropes and tallies, tangled up in one another. The ropes made fast lassoes.

_Joseph Buquet_, she silently warned, _you are going to get yourself in grave danger if you do not learn how to hold your tongue. The Phantom is faster than you are._

She snapped out of her reverie to her daughter's continued fretting at her skirt.

"What is it?" she said, a little sharply, annoyed at being disturbed.

"I have a good idea." The words tumbled quickly out of Meg's rose bud mouth.

"You have far too many good ideas, ma cherié," said Madame Giry, smiling slightly at her daughter's talkativeness. Too many times had that lively tongue gotten her in to big trouble.

"But it is a good idea! An excellent idea, in fact," rambled on Meg. "Why don't you choose Seraphina? She is a brilliant dancer, yet you never give her a solo part in the dances." Meg said, unhindered by her mother's edgy tone.

Madame Giry swept a cursory glance over to where Sephy stood, silently retying her laces. Long brown tendrils escaped her high bun, framing a rosy, heart shaped face. Madame Giry's eyes took in Sephy's slim limbs, nodding approvingly at Sephy's unconscious turn out even though she was not dancing.

"That is not half a bad idea," murmured Madame Giry. Sephy was extremely hard working, and had much expression in her dance movements. Her technique was nothing special but she danced with so much life, so much feeling and exuberance that the audience could feel this magnetic field, drawing eyes to her as she graced the stage.

She was graceful, she knew her work and she was roughly the same size as Giselle. A perfect fit for her costume. _Why didn't I think of that before?_

She gave her daughter a grudging smile, and landed a light kiss on her daughter's head.

"For once, you have said something that is not entirely nonsense," Madame Giry said approvingly, tousling Meg's hair. Meg frowned in indignation.

"I speak good sense all the time; you just choose to ignore what makes sense, and you pick out everything I say that is unimportant, then call it nonsense," protested Meg, a slight crease appearing in her forehead, even as she gave in to laughter.

Madame Giry slowly got up, and made her way over to Seraphina.


	2. Chapter 2

**Eeek… I totally forgot about the disclaimer part. **

**Disclaimer : Not mine.**

**Chapter Two**

Sephy smiled and took the bon-bon Joanna offered her. She unwrapped the chocolate wafer and crumpled up the shiny foil, then chucked it to the side. She winced as a high pitched scream pierced through the din, followed by roars of laughter as Emma made a spot on imitation of Carlotta.

"Aaaahhh! You are mmmmmyyyyy loooooooove!" shrieked Emma at the top of her voice, pretending to swish about her voluminous petticoats with a hand, sing _and _flutter a colossal fan at the same time, which proved too much for her and her companions, who dissolved in to tears of hysteria.

The noise level in the ballerina's dorm was always at a steady crescendo and barely died down till bed time, when Madame Giry had barged in at least thrice and threatened to make them practice an extra hour the next day.

"I think I'll go to the auditorium and listen to the….orchestra practice," Sephy managed to mumble through a mouthful of crumbs. Joanna made a shoo-shoo motion with her hands.

Sephy made to search for her shoes and shawl but couldn't locate the shawl anywhere. Her quick brown eyes darted across the dorm filled with dozens of ballerinas chattering; a small group were running through a part of a dance in Scene 3 for Don Juan Triumphant in the far corner of the room.

The brief thought that the dance sequences for the opera were particularly obscene in some places and were hardly fit to be called ballet, ran fleetingly through her head, before her wandering mind snapped back to her missing shawl.

"Has anyone seen my peach shawl?" called Sephy as she bent down to tug on her shoes. A chorus of 'no's and 'where are you going?'s filled the room.

A silky piece of cloth came hurtling through the air and slapped in to Sephy's face.

"Oof!"

She choked on the remnants of her tidbit and grabbed wildly at the railing of her bed before she fell on her rear end. The room exploded in laughter.

"I'm sorry!" Vivienne rushed to explain, half relieved to see that Sephy wasn't angry. On the contrary, she was grinning.

The small ballet rat had to shout to make herself heard above the echoing din of the girl's laughter.

"We were playing Blind Man's Buff," she said guiltily, gesturing towards a gaggle of giggling girls behind her.

"It's perfect," Janette joined in. "It's loose weave so we can just barely manage to see where the others are heading."

Sephy draped the shawl around her slender shoulders, pulling a lock of wavy brown hair out of her face as she exited the room. She shook her head, smiling wryly as she heard a loud thump from the other side of the door, followed by high squeals.

Far away she could hear the faint sounds of the orchestra rehearsing a deep, emotional piece from the beginning of Don Juan Triumphant. The vibrations thrummed through the ground and walls, the music literally running through her body.

Sephy felt a fine tremor of anxiety run through her veins alongside the strains of the dim music as she contemplated the performance due the day after tomorrow.

Lead part in Don Juan Triumphant!

She could barely restrain a big smile from breaking out. She was getting a solo part on opening night of an opera played in Paris' renown opera house! The enormity and bliss of the moment made her chasse happily as she recalled Madame Giry walking up to her out of the blue this afternoon, and calmly offering to make one of her deepest wishes come true.

* * *

"_Sephy."_

"_Yes, Madame Giry," said Sephy, a ring of questioning in her voice as she straightened up from retying her laces. _

"_You need to work on that triple pirouette of yours," the gray haired lady said, tapping her cane on the ground. "It's not very stable."_

"_I know, Madame. I think it's because of my left shoulder," Sephy said, eager to discuss the dance. Any personal tips from Madame Giry was very much appreciated, as she mainly concentrated on the prima ballerinas, they being the center of attraction. They plunged in to a lengthy and complicated discussion, frequently interjected by demonstrations from the teacher, and questions posed by the student._

"_So you might try bringing around the shoulder and carrying your arms closer to your chest," suggested Madame Giry. She always phrased her sentences to sound as if she was offering good advice, which it was, but anyone with sense could detect the undercurrent which implied she was giving an order. Madame Giry was not to be disobeyed._

_Sephy executed a perfect triple spin, eliciting a beatific smile from Madame Giry who lightly applauded. _

"_Thank you, mam'zelle," Sephy said, waiting for more. When Madame Giry didn't reply, Sephy got the impression that the discussion was over. Picking up her ballet shoes from the linoleum floor, fingering the ribbons and turned to leave, when Madame Giry stopped her with a short "Seraphina?'_

_Sephy faced Madame Giry, giving a small smile when she noticed Madame Giry fiddling with the folds of her skirt just like Meg when her own mother asked her a question and Meg didn't know the answer._

"_Do you know the steps to Giselle's part?" _

_The small smile on Sephy's face disappeared instantly, leaving Sephy slack jawed in disbelief, gaping at her teacher, hardly believing what was being said to her._

_Madame Giry frowned. "Close your mouth, dear. It's not ladylike when you open your mouth till the jaw scrapes the floor."_

_Sephy's jaw snapped shut, and she shook herself._

"_Well?" asked Madame Giry, irritatedly._

"_Oh, yes. Yes. I know the part like the back of my left hand," Sephy hastened, in case Madame Giry should suddenly retract the offer. Not that she had exactly _asked _her to dance the part, but she was going to. Definitely going to._

"_Back of your left hand, hmm?" murmured Madame Giry, amused. Sephy quickly glanced at her left hand, almost as if to check there were still five fingers._

_Five fingers still in place._

_Madame Giry looked undecided for a moment, lost in her thoughts, then gave a sharp nod._

"_Good. You have the part," she stated, a huge burden noticeably lifted off her back. She had a prima ballerina now!_

_The bubbles of anxiety inside Sephy burst in to an explosion of excitement and Sephy felt like bouncing on her bed with Joanna. No bed and privacy handy, Sephy barely managed to school her features to present a calm expression._

_Madame Giry gave her a briefing on when private rehearsals would be held, and instructed her to run off to find Madame Du'ponte, the person who tailored all the costumes, so that the dresses could be altered to fit her perfectly._

_The minute Madame Giry turned to go, Sephy squealed inwardly with joy, eyes squeezed shut and her fingers pulling at her shift, to prevent her from screaming down the opera roof. Sephy hurriedly rushed to find Joanna, her best friend, and they both danced a very undignified tribal looking dance together, hand in hand around an empty changing room, at Sephy's good news. _

_When they had finally exhausted themselves they collapsed on a pile of velveteen curtains abandoned at the corner, and half asphyxiated themselves by breathing in the great poof of cloud that arose from the curtains. _

* * *

Sephy gave a small snort of laughter, remembering how they had rushed from the room, waving their hands in front of their faces to dispel the dust that seemed to follow after them. They had literally bumped in to Joseph Buquet, the bad tempered stagehand, who gave them a scowl, pushed them aside and continued on his way.

Only with Joanna could she act as ridiculous and as relaxed as she ever could be. It was nice to have such a close friend who really celebrated your triumphs with you.

Sephy reached back stage and sat herself down on the floor, out of the way of the bustling stage helps, as she watched the singers ready themselves for their dress rehearsal.


End file.
